Apple of My Eye (44 page)

And there was one worry at least that it was safe to share.

‘I think I’m pregnant.’

A look of absolute horror came into her mother’s face. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘I’m three weeks late, Mum. What else can it mean?’

‘You can’t be!’ Her mother’s tone was shrill. ‘He hasn’t been near you in months.’

She was taken aback. ‘In months? What do you mean? I only met Ronnie two months ago and we didn’t …’

She stopped. Understanding coming with the force of a bullet to the chest.

They stared at each other.

‘You knew.’

A multitude of emotions darted across her mother’s face. Alarm. Shock. Shame.

She rubbed her head, feeling as if it were about to explode. ‘How long?’

‘Susie, please …’

‘How long? Not since it started. Don’t tell me you’ve known since then. You can’t have known since then!’

She waited for denial but none came. And in the face the shame remained.

‘I was only eight years old! How could you stand by and let him do that to me?’

Her mother swallowed. ‘Because I had no choice.’

‘No choice? What do you mean? Did he threaten you?’

‘We needed him. He gave us a home. He gave us security. If we …’

‘We had a home! We may not have had much money but we would have managed. How can you say you had no choice?’

‘I was alone. I was frightened. I …’

‘Frightened?’ She was almost screaming. ‘How do you think I felt? I was eight years old! Just how frightened do you think I was?’

‘He didn’t hurt you. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you. I used to hear him go up to you and I’d lie awake
and listen. If I’d heard you cry out I would have gone up and stopped it. You have to believe that, Susie. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you.’

‘He gave me gonorrhoea, Mum! He infected me with a disease. You don’t call that hurting me?’

Her mother shuddered.

‘Well?’

‘Susie, please …’

‘Do you know what he said to me the first time? He told me it was my fault. He said that it was because I was wicked and because I wanted it to happen. But he said he was my friend and that he wouldn’t tell and that I mustn’t tell either because if I did and you found out you’d have another breakdown and you’d go away and I’d never see you again.’ Suddenly she started to cry. ‘And I couldn’t let that happen because I promised Dad I’d always look after you. Every day I was terrified that someone was going to find out how wicked I was and tell you and that I’d lose you and all the time you knew too!’

By now her mother was also in tears. ‘I’m sorry. You have to believe me.’

‘Is that what you were going to say to Jennifer when she reached my age? Because he was going to do it to her too. She’s only six and you were just going to sit there and let it happen!’

‘No. I wouldn’t have let him. I swear to you …’

‘You’re a liar!’ She rose to her feet, hurling the mug against the wall. ‘You’re a bloody liar! You were going to let that bastard hurt her the way he did me. But I don’t suppose she matters as much, does she?
After all, it’s not as if she’s your daughter.’

‘But it’s over now. He’s dead.’

‘Because I killed him! I did it with Ronnie. I would have done it on my own but he wanted to help. We planned it for weeks. How to make it look like an accident.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘What’s the matter, Mum? Does the truth hurt? Then just pretend it’s not happening, because that seems to be one of your specialities, doesn’t it.’

Her mother began to whimper. Momentarily, years of conditioning kicked in. The urge to comfort. To shield. To protect. But the feelings were all based upon lies, and as long as she lived she would never surrender to them again.

‘You’re so weak, aren’t you? You’re the weakest person I’ve ever met and I despise you for it. You’re no longer my mother. You’re nothing. And I never want to see you again!’

Then she turned and ran from the room.

A quarter to eight. As she had done every day since he had come to live with her, Anna brought Ronnie an early-morning cup of tea.

The curtains were still drawn and the room in virtual darkness. She assumed he was still in bed. ‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.

‘I’m here, Mum.’

She jumped. He was sitting at his desk. Quickly she put on the light. ‘What are you doing there?’

‘Thinking about you.’

‘Me? What about me?’

‘That you deserve better. You’ve always deserved better.’

There was another chair beside him. She sat down on it. ‘Better than what?’

‘Do you remember when I was little? When Vera used to say that you should have had me adopted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe you should have listened.’

She was taken aback. ‘How can you say that? You’re the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. There’s nothing and no one on this earth who could ever have made me give you up.’

‘I know.’ He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek, kissing it softly. ‘I’m glad you married Charles. I wasn’t when it happened. I hated him because I didn’t want to share you. But I don’t hate him any more. He’s a good man. You were right about that. I’m glad he’s going to be here for you when …’

His words petered out. She felt alarmed. ‘Ronnie, what are you saying?’

‘Only that I really love you. No matter what happens you must never, ever doubt that.’

A chill passed through her. ‘You’re frightening me. I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘Ronnie …’

A faint Ronnie Sunshine smile. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m just tired and people
always talk rubbish when they’re tired.’

He leant across and hugged her, holding her so tight that it felt as if he would never let her go.

A quarter to nine. Charles was in his car, heading out of Kendleton towards Oxford, when he saw Susan walking by the side of the road.

The morning was cold but she had no coat. Her arms were wrapped around herself, her lips moving continually. Alarmed, he stopped the car and called out her name.

She didn’t answer. Just kept walking. He climbed out of the car and hurried after her. ‘Susie? What is it? What’s happened?’

‘She knew.’

‘Who? Knew what?’

‘My mother! She knew! All the time she knew!’

He could see her shivering. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Out of the cold …’

Ten minutes later Susan was sitting in Charles’s car, his jacket wrapped around her while the engine rumbled and filled the car with warmth.

‘So what does she know?’ he asked her.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Is it about your stepfather? What he did to you?’

She stared at him. ‘How can you know about that?’

‘Because once, two years ago, Henry Norris told me about a young girl patient of his whose father was hurting her. He didn’t tell me who the girl was. Only
that she looked like a film star. When I saw how nervous you were with Henry’s widow I put the pieces together.’

She felt exposed. Vulnerable. Quickly she pulled the jacket tighter round herself.

‘Does Ronnie know too?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Was it his idea to kill him?’

Silence. Except for the hiss of the engine.

‘I’m not trying to trap you, Susie. I’m not judging you either. I just want to help.’

‘It was my idea. I would have done it even if I hadn’t met Ronnie. He was going to start on Jennifer, you see, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let her go through what I’d been through. I had to stop him and I didn’t know what else to do. I knew no one would believe me if I told them, and if I did try to tell he might have hurt my mother and I didn’t want her to know and …’

She couldn’t go on. A lump in her throat blocked the words that would have followed. He moved closer, putting his arm around her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘You’re safe.’

‘Not from Ronnie. When he told me what he’d done he thought I’d be pleased but I wasn’t. I was disgusted. And he hates me for that.’

‘What had he done?’

She told him about Waltringham and Ronnie’s father. About the body in the quarry and the pictures in the drawer.

‘How many pictures were there?’ he asked eventually.

‘I don’t know. Dozens at least.’

He whistled softly between his teeth. ‘Jesus Christ.’

‘I tried not to let him see how I really felt. But I couldn’t fool him. He’s too clever.’ She swallowed. ‘And anyway, who am I to judge him? I’ve killed too.’

‘You can’t compare yourself to him.’

‘Yes I can.’

‘No you can’t.’ Taking her chin in his hand, he stared into her eyes. ‘Susie, listen to me. You killed because you were frightened. You wanted to protect Jennifer and didn’t know how else to do it. Perhaps you were wrong. There are people who would say that you were wrong and that you did a bad thing. But that doesn’t make you a bad person and it certainly doesn’t make you like Ronnie. You are nothing like him. Nothing at all.’

‘I’m still a murderess.’

‘And Henry Norris was a murderer. But he was still a good man and one I was proud to call a friend.’

‘Henry Norris?’

He nodded. ‘Though we met as undergraduates he was a good dozen years older than me. He’d fought in the First World War in the trenches. He never liked to talk about it but one evening when we’d been drinking together he told me a story he’d never told anyone else. It was about a young private in his regiment called Collins. A decent enough man on the surface, so Henry said, but there was something missing in him. Some basic human empathy. The expression Henry used was ‘dead behind the eyes’.

‘One day a German regiment attacked them. They were repelled but one German became trapped in the trench. Henry said that he came across Collins torturing the German. Stabbing him again and again in the legs and arms with a bayonet. The German was little more than a boy. He was wounded and helpless and screaming for mercy but Collins just kept laughing, enjoying every second of it. Henry begged him to stop but he wouldn’t. Just kept on and on laughing. So Henry shot him. A single bullet in the heart. And when he told me the story he said that though he knew it was wrong he’s never regretted it.’

She leant against him, pulling the jacket ever tighter. Breathing in its musty scent of old tobacco and remembering how her father’s jackets had smelled the same way.

‘Do you think that about Ronnie?’ she asked. ‘That he’s dead behind the eyes?’

‘I think there’s something missing in him, yes. I sensed it as soon as I met him. That and the fact that he was hiding something. His mother senses it too. I think she always has. In fact, I think she knows about Waltringham. But she won’t acknowledge it because Ronnie’s been the whole joy of her life since she was just seventeen, and when you love someone like that you can’t allow yourself to accept anything that could take that joy away. Love makes you blind. Wilfully, perhaps, but blind none the less.’

‘My mother didn’t love my stepfather. She was just weak.’

‘But she loves you.’

‘I don’t love her, though. Not any more.’

‘Yes you do. You can’t just choose to stop loving someone. It doesn’t work like that.’

‘It does for Ronnie.’

His arm was still around her. She turned to stare into his damaged face and the eyes that were so like her father’s. She wanted her father. She wanted to be a little child again. To escape back to the time when she had never been afraid.

‘I think Ronnie’s going to try and hurt my mother. He as good as said so the last time I saw him, and we both know he’s capable of doing it. Waltringham is proof of that.’

‘But that was aimed at a father who was never more to him than a dream. A fantasy. It’s easy to hurt someone like that because it doesn’t seem real. It’s different with someone you truly love, and he still loves you, I’m sure of it. He can’t stop caring about you because he wants to, and if he still cares then there’s a chance he can be reasoned with.’

‘There’s something else I could do.’

‘What?’

‘Go to the police. Tell them what we did. They’d take me into custody but they’d take him in too, and that way he couldn’t hurt anyone else.’

‘But you can’t do that. They’d send you to prison. You’d be ruining your own life.’

‘I don’t care about my life. Not any more.’

‘But you care about Jennifer. You say you’re her big
sister but you’re wrong. I’ve watched the two of you together and you’re the closest thing that little girl has ever had to a mother. She’s already lost her real one. Do you want to deprive her of another one too?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘But it’s true. Do you want to hurt her like that?’

‘Of course not! I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her ever. I love her more than anyone in the world and I’d rather …’

Then she stopped.

‘Susie?’

‘Oh my God.’

‘What?’

‘Jennifer. If Ronnie wants to hurt someone to get back at me, she’s the one he’ll pick.’

She saw him pale. Felt herself do the same.

‘Where is she now?’ he asked.

‘At home.’

‘Then she’ll be all right.’

‘Like the little boy in Waltringham was?’

He started his engine. ‘She’ll be all right. I’m sure of it.’

‘Just drive. Please!’

Five minutes later Susan climbed out of Charles’s car in front of Jennifer’s house.

The door opened. Uncle George appeared, waving to her, looking surprised but relaxed. ‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be at home.’ Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he handed her a sealed envelope. ‘This is for you.’

‘What is it?’

He smiled. ‘The first clue.’

‘For what.’

‘The treasure hunt Ronnie’s organized. Jenjen’s very excited about it.’

Her heart began to pound. ‘Jenjen? Where is she?’

‘With Ronnie. He phoned yesterday evening to say that you were still feeling down so he’d thought up a treasure hunt to cheer you up and asked if Jenjen could help him plant the clues. He came for her first thing this morning but asked me to wait for an hour before telling you. Like I said, Jenjen’s very excited. She told me last week that Ronnie’s one of her favourite people.’